When we arrived me and Enzo most definitely didn't want to go inside, towards the back of the mansion was a giant rose bush that looked like it would slice your legs into pieces if you ever tried to walk through them. They were completely overgrown, besides that, the old rusted gate made a loud croaking sound that made me want to close my ears.
The inside, however, is much worse. Old paintings of creepy people are plastered all around the house, the furniture is still here and it looks like it went into World War 1, World War 2, and then back to the very first war of the world. Walking further into the house there's a staircase that's kind of narrow and goes straight up to the second floor, there's no TV whatsoever.
In front of the old beat-up couches is a coffee table made of complete glass, everything at home is always wooden. Mom sucks in a breath once she sees the place, I hear her hushed whisper over to Dad. "I thought you said you checked this place out," Dad mutters something back, but his voice is too low for me to hear.
With my suitcase, I walk upstairs and into the first bedroom, I see. As I look around I notice that it must've been a teenage girl's bedroom, there are graphic and gory drawings plastered over the walls. The bed is still unmade and I notice there's still blood on the bedsheets, I press my lips into a thin line as I remove the blanket and the sheets, I toss them on the floor and stare at the black, disgusting, looking mattress.
This is beyond fucking disgusting. I leave my suitcase in the room and march downstairs, where Elena, Mom, and Dad are sitting and talking. No doubt about the mission. "If you want me to sleep here, please, I'm begging you. Buy me a new mattress." I tell them, their conversation halts and they all turn to look at me.
"What's wrong with the mattress?" Dad is the first to speak up, his eyes looking at me with concern in them. Mom has a slight annoyance and Elena's face is blank. "There's blood on the sheets and the mattress looks like a gorilla and a chimpanzee took a huge shi- poop all over," I explain, my hands flailing around and my voice raising a few octaves.
Dad nods at me. "I'll buy you a new mattress, please do your assignment now." I smile gratefully and spin on my heel, as I walk back to my bedroom I hear Enzo talking to himself, I follow his voice into a room a little further down the hall.
His room looks cleaner like nobody ever stepped foot in there. But then I change my mind once I see blood splatter on the floor. "You'd think these people would clean this place up before fucking selling it." He grumbles, I don't think he knows I'm in here so I just stand by the doorframe and watch as he curses in a string of Italian and English. His sentences smoothly flip between the languages, he stops abruptly when his eyes find my shoes and then my face.
"Cazzo." He curses and I shrug my shoulders. "Wanna come with me?" I ask him and he just stares at me, Enzo doesn't usually tag along on interrogations. He isn't very good at it, but for some reason, I feel like he needs an excuse to get out of this house. With a sigh, he nods.
"Alright, I'm gonna change, so meet you outside in 10 minutes."
I turn around and head down the hall into my own room, I shut the door behind me, which is a bit of a struggle since the door feels like it weighs more than a 2,000-pound person. I step over the bed sheet and blanket that I left on the floor and I open my suitcase. The bright side of this is that it doesn't smell like a body is rotting and slowly decomposing. It kind of smells like new paint, which is weird since I'm sure these walls hadn't been painted in over 10 years.
I pull out the outfit that I usually wear for my morning runs, a tank top and a pair of biker shorts. I undress as I look around the bedroom at the drawings, whoever's room this belonged to must've been depressed as hell or something. One picture though catches my eye, it's a drawing of a boy. His eyes are a searing blue, and his dark hair falls floppily on his forehead framing his face.
His jawline is sharp and clear of any stubble or beard, and the boy is very attractive, in his hand, he's holding a gun. Aiming it at his target, a young girl was shaking in fear. Her hands are covering her face and her brown hair is sprawled all over. A picture next to that is like the scene afterward, the young girl lays on the ground in a pool of her own blood. The boy smirks at her triumphantly, his gun lowered by his side.
He's happy that he shot her. That he killed her.
I blow out a breath as I bend over to zip my suitcase back up, now that I'm perfectly dressed. When I do bend over though, I bump into the dresser, sending a thick notebook to come crashing on my back. I wince from it and stand up straight, the notebook falls to the floor so I bend over to retrieve it.
"Luna Russo's Diary"
I frown at it, the curiosity killing me, but I know I have to meet Enzo outside and I have a job to get down. I place the book in my suitcase and zip it up before shoving it in between a bookcase and the bed. I leave out my room and jog downstairs as soon as I hear the front door close, Dad stays seated on the beaten-up chair. "I'm off to the Rosa's," I call out. "Enzo's coming with." I add, he mumbling be careful and I leave out the house, just as I see Elena and Mom driving off down the street. Enzo still isn't out here so I walk off the porch and out into the sun's harsh glares, I lean up against the gate with my arms crossed.
As I waited my curiosity slowly began to eat at me, wanting to know more about the drawing and I wanted to read that diary, to see who Luna was and what happened to her. Did that boy kill her? Who was he anyway? Just as I feel like I've waited too long, I'm about to walk inside and rush Enzo but a girl who looks around my age, with blonde golden locks waves at me.
I wave back keeping my face blank of all emotion. "Hey, I'm Maggie!" She chirps, her voice isn't annoying but it isn't appealing either. "Hey, Aria," I say, giving her my code name. She's dressed in a pink crop top with the words, Beauty, printed on the front of it. Her jean shorts are a tad bit too short, but who am I to judge?
"You moved in here?" She asked, gesturing towards the house. I look back at it, squinting against the sun as I nod my head. "Yup." Her eyebrows shoot up as she nods her head. "Wow, this house had been empty forever."
I realize she must be around her and I want to know more because if I don't I'll surely go insane with my curiosity. "What happened? Like why is it so empty?" I ask her and she looks at me as if I'm less than smart.
"About fifteen years ago a girl named Luna Russo lived here, she was like thirteen at the time, and she was best friends with my older sister. Anyway, she dated some older guy named Angelo, he was like way older than her, I mean he was a grown-ass man." I scrunch my face up, what kind of grown man dates a thirteen-year-old? Pedophile.
"Anyways, my sister didn't tell me much except that, Luna would always tell her she felt like she was in danger. Like someone would kill her, two weeks later her entire family was found murdered. Her Mom was stabbed in the stomach, the sad thing is she was pregnant. The Dad was found in a bathtub filled with blood, his wrists were slit and so was his neck. Then there was Luna, she was missing for a while." I frown, a pregnant woman shot in the stomach. Male's wrists are slit? That matches whoever did this to the others.
"Finally when they did find her, it was at an old warehouse. She was shot in the chest, stomach, legs, and arms. She bled out, her dead body was in that warehouse for almost a month." I look at her unaffected by this, it should affect me, but bloodshed is all too familiar to me.
"Did they find out who did it?" I ask her, now leaning off the gate. "Nope, it's suspected the Dad did it. You know, murder-suicide, but that couldn't explain why Luna was in a warehouse. You can look more stuff up about it on the internet, just search up her name." I nod at this as Enzo walks out of the house. Maggie's eyes follow him, her lips are slightly parted and her eyes a widened.
Enzo runs a hand through his short hair as he looks up at us, he completely ignores her and flashes his smile at me. "Ready?" I nod my head and turn towards Maggie. "It was nice meeting you." I tell her, with that, we spin around and begin walking.
Enzo looks behind his shoulder at Maggie and makes a distasteful look. "Why do girls do that?" He says in a disgusted manner, I shrug as we continue our walk. "They like what they see," I mumble, crossing my arms over my chest.
My mind is swarmed with thoughts of Luna and her murder, who killed her and why? I need to know who killed her, the person who killed her no doubt murdered the others as well. The signatures are exactly the same.
"You okay?" Enzo's voice breaks into my train of thought, I feel around my pockets and realize I left my cigarettes back at the house. We're already turning the corner so there's no way I'm turning back, especially in this heat. "Here."
Enzo passed me a cigarette and a lighter, when I give him a look as I take it he shrugs. "I wasn't going to smoke it, I swear." I place the cancer stick in between my lips and I light it up, I shove the lighter in my pocket as I blow the smoke out into the humid air. My hair will no doubt frizz up soon.
"Why are we walking? Rosa's neighborhood has to be an hour or more away." As he says this I take my phone out from my pocket and plug her address into the GPS as I move the cigarette from my lips. "It's actually a 30-minute walk, I think you'll live." He grumbles as I take another drag.
"Why do you smoke?" I look over at him, my eyes are slightly hooded. This dude asks too many questions, but I answer them anyway. Nobody wants an awkward ass walk. "I don't know, a distraction I guess." I never really thought about it, maybe I'm waiting for lung cancer to kill me instead of another trigger-happy mafia assassin.
The rest of the walk is quiet, I finish off my cigarette and stamp it out as we enter Rosa's neighborhood. The cigarette somewhat calmed my thinking down, I'm not too worried about Luna anymore, and now I'm ready to get my job done. Once we reach the house I notice that nothing really changed, they still have a beautiful rose garden out front, and everything is super neat and clean. Above the doorbell is a small camera, a normal person would miss it, but not a trained assassin. I squint at it and notice it's on, hm.
The only thing that's different is a photo of Rosa and an ultrasound on a cross with a teddy bear and balloons around it, it saddens me that the poor baby never got to even live on its own. Enzo knocked on the door twice, I check my phone and see it was around 8:30 am.
The door opened and revealed a tall man, Rosa's husband, he looked at us in confusion before realization dawned on him. He gave us a smile. "Morning, Marino's." He greeted us, I cringed slightly as he opened the door for us to walk inside. As we stepped inside we looked around, and framed photos of Rosa were hung up on the walls.
Nothing exactly changed except now there were ultrasounds hanging up as well, he led us into the kitchen. "Would you guys like anything to drink?" He opened the fridge and grabbed a pitcher of fresh lemonade, I nodded my head and sat down at the table as he poured three glasses of lemonade. Enzo sat next to me.
"So, what brings you guys here?" He asks us once the glasses of lemonade are sitting in front of us, Enzo reaches out and takes a sip of his first. "We just have some questions regarding Rosa's passing." I say, he sits across from us and a gloomy expression passes over his face.
He nods and I pull out my phone to record. 'Where was the family when she died?" I ask after I press start on recording. He clicks his tongue. "The kids were at her erm, sister's house. I was out finishing an assignment Mr. Marino has assigned to me." Enzo glances at me but I keep my eyes solely trained on the male in front of us.
"Explain what happened when you got home," I say and he takes a huge gulp of his drink before answering. "Well, usually when I get home, Rosa is always laying on the couch. That day she wasn't, I um went into the bagno and that's when I saw her." His voice is hitched, but I can almost hear something else in his tone. Not exactly sadness, but I can't pinpoint it right now. If I don't ask everything I need to ask, I'll forget.
"How'd you react?" He gives me a slightly annoyed look, but I raise my eyebrow and he sighs. "I was shocked, and then when I realized what I was looking at I immediately grabbed my phone to call 911."
My phone vibrates with a text from Dad.
Papà: how's everything going?
I quickly reply, giving him a small summary of everything that went down. I can feel the heat of his gaze on me as I text my father, once I hit send I look back up at him and his attention averts elsewhere.
"I saw a camera out front of your house, mind if I take a look at the footage?" I ask, his eyes widen and he quickly shakes his head. "It um, well it wasn't working that day. It still doesn't work."
"Bulllshit, I saw the light. It works." Enzo speaks up, his tone indicating he doesn't like or trust this man and honestly, I don't trust him either. "Look buddy, I'm sure you need this job more than anything right now. So why don't you show us that footage or else I'd hate to get my father to fire you." I put on my bratty daddy's princess attitude like the annoying ass spoiled white girls in the high school movies.
He purses his lips together. "There's no need for that since I quit." I pulled back from him, my eyes squinting. There's no way in hell. "Impossible, you can't quit." Enzo throws at him, the male is now looking very smug and I don't like it at all. In fact, the look on his face makes my stomach churn, Enzo has his jaw clenched as he abruptly stands up from his seat.
"Let's go Aria."
After we leave Enzo goes into a full rage about everything. "You can't just quit! It's the fucking mafia for fucks sake." I rub my forehead as Enzo kicks over someone's black trash can, all the contents spilling out. I shake my head. None of this makes sense, his wife just got murdered and he wants to leave the mafia? When he knows he'll need the money the absolute most? And his kids.
Once Enzo calms down he's quiet for a moment before shaking his head. "Did you notice he stuttered?" He asks and I nod, he did. "Stuttering usually means you're covering something up," I say and he nods in agreement, but why would he lie about his kid's whereabouts? Why lie to us period? We gave him a job when no one else would, we gave his family money when he needed it the most. We tried our best to protect them, and what do we get in the end? Lies.
I'm pondering about this the entire walk back to the house which seems pretty short, I don't even realize we're there until my Dad speaks up. Enzo and I walk over to him and I play the recording, I watch Dad's reaction which seems unfazed and unbothered until the ending. "Replay it." He orders, I replay it three more times with Mom, Elena, and Vince.
"He stuttered a lot." Elena noted, Enzo nodded his head in agreement. "Did he say.. quit? Like this is fucking Walmart?" Vince bursts out and I nod confirming that is true. We all look at Dad wondering about his opinion about this. "Amore mio, what are your thoughts?" He asks at once, we all avert our attention to Mom.
She doesn't say anything for a while, trying to piece together exactly what she wants to say. She always does this, practicing her speeches in her head before giving them aloud. We sit in complete silence for about a minute or two before she starts talking. "It makes no sense to me. Your wife just died, shouldn't you be mourning her death? Preparing for the funeral? Why would you try to leave the most powerful mafia families in Chicago when you need the money? Why does he even think he can leave? He has no choice, no decision. The only way to leave the Marino family is in a body bag." She clasps her hands together once she finishes.
Dad nods and looks at Elena. "Lena?"
Elena stands up and clears her throat, it makes me giggle sometimes, but right now isn't the time for that. "Mendoza seems very... suspicious. I went to college and studied psychology, it was for a mission, but I still graduated." I smile because I love when she uses actual knowledge and logic for things like this. "When he mentioned where his kids were, he stuttered. That immediately gives me a red flag that he's lying. He lacked confidence up until Maya threatened to tell Piero about him, that's when he grew smug and arrogant. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he wants to leave this family and work for another. The enemy possibly."
Elena sits down and I nod my head at this. "Vince?"
"I agree with Elena and Elenora, he's trying to leave right after his wife died and he was obviously lying about the whole camera not working bullshit because he panicked, I heard that panic in his voice. Why would you panic about a camera? Unless he knew his wife was going to die and he knows exactly who did it. Now I don't have a theory on why."
"Enzo?"
I chew on my lip. "While I was there he fidgeted a lot and kept taking long drinks of the lemonade. I agree with Dad, I feel like he was given hush money or something." Enzo doesn't say much because he's still very pissed off.
I take a deep breath because I already know what I'm going to say. "I agree with everyone, Mendoza was very fidgety, in the beginning, he wasn't very sure of his answers, hinting at the stutter. When I visited the family Mendoza never seemed like the type to be unsure, and then when I asked about the camera his entire facial expression changed. His eyes were huge and his body was leaning out of the chair like he wanted to run. When we got to the house there was no evidence that children actually lived there, when Rosa was still alive her kid's toys were all over the floor. Their pictures were hung in every hallway. Mendoza also looked very healthy and put together, there was no stubble. No mess. The kitchen was completely clean, in my head, if my wife just died, the dishes would the very last thing I'd think of doing. I'd want to be with my kids."
I look around to see everyone nodding and Dad looking impressed with my words, Enzo is looking at me with admiration. "I feel like the next course of action is Dad and Vince going back, there's no way he'll talk back to the boss and his right-hand man. He'll be forced to show the footage."
"And if he deletes them we'll know something fishy is happening," Dad adds and I nod in agreement. "That's exactly what I was thinking, good job neonata." I smile and sit back in my seat.
"Vince after you finish up with your work, we're going to Mendoza's place."